Less and less matches are going down to the wire. I've dabbled in a couple matches today and all of them have been losses where my team barely hit the half the points needed to win while the other team piled on the airsupport. We staged a comeback but only after the bottom two players on our team quit and the enemy lost their cannon fodder.

I don't play nearly as much as a used too, maybe a few matches a couple times a week and I have to say, between this and lack of friends who play the game, I'm finding little incentive to play for extended periods of time.

Population numbers are low meaning that you are more likely to some up against clans. Or if lucky - with . What I mean is matchmaking criteria can only produce "fairer" lobbies if there are more players to choose from.

More clans/parties full stop. Clan wars has been a great initiative in Ghosts. The flip side is that lone wolves have a tougher time of it. A team that can communicate and cooperate have a great advantage, especially in objective modes.

Credit to IW - a new hotfix giving pointscore (killstreaks) for objective play does now give folks greater incentive to jump on those flags.

However, you can't stop human nature. Little story. I played a game of domination tonight. Worked me ass off getting caps. The opposition where working very well. End score of about 200 - 125. Unusual, no. But having two "clan" members on your team who both had K/Ds of 50-30,, 40-20 --> alas neither one had a capture. They just ran around getting kills. Never turning to defend a flag, or jump on one being capped by myself. Having a slayer on your team can be a good thing to quell enemy scoretreaks. However it is easy to tell when they are just being selfish.

In some ways I feel fortunate as most of the games I've played have been close to the wire wether win or lose, there are have been some when one team has had the more benifical side and no matter what the outcome I've always stayed for a few matches just to see if the tide's can be turned. As FalconR6 as already pointed out it does depend on the teamates you're put with, if you're on xbox and ever need someone to party up with PM and I'll add you - my KD's not fantastic as I'm a total objective player and tend to die a lot playing the objective

I only play HC Dom, on the ps4. For the first few months I was surprised how many matches were close, the losing side often scoring 180+. As a solo player I get thrown into a lot of matches underway. A common theme now being I am thrown onto the side with barely 20 points, no flags, and players camping it out for kills. Fortunately we have spectate as an option and I refuse to join these matches. People not playing the objective has been an issue in most CoD games but is becoming a big theme in ghosts. Like you I have cut my time down a lot, and when the Elder Scrolls is released on ps4, I have a feeling I wont bother with ghosts at all.

I have well over 200 hours in Dark Souls and I'm pretty much playing that exclusively. When ESO launches in June I'll be into that game a lot and before you know all these PS4 games that we announced way back when will finally be released. Call of Duty is already suffering huge hits to it's popularity with the few games that have been released, I forsee it getting gruesome.

Destiny looks like the open world online FPS that we've all dreamed of and many MMOs are figuring out how to bring their style of gaming to console so unless CoD can cook up something fantastic I don't see it reigning as the most success game much longer.

As for the OP, I don't get put into matches that are in progress much, what I do see though are several <5 kills >20 deaths players who can't even get a couple objective locked down. My guess is that people who bought the PS4 don't have many games to play and pick up Call of Duty because it's the one of eight big titles out right now.

Destiny looks like the open world online FPS that we've all dreamed of and many MMOs are figuring out how to bring their style of gaming to console so unless CoD can cook up something fantastic I don't see it reigning as the most success game much longer.

Well according to you gun on gun was what everyone wanted. So this game is gun on gun. Based on that premise what do you expect them to do without changing the gun on gun aspect?

From what I've seen Destiny is basically CoD put into an MMORPG format. Four those who are really into FPS Destiny might be all they could want in a game. Not all the information on it has been released but from the gameplay I've seen and articles I've read Destiny is the most expansive game ever put together yet runs on a solid 60fps and all the other things that CoD players love about it's mechanics. Granted it's made by Halo's studio, but it still has a lot of CoD feels.

I think you miss understood what I said. There are games coming out that offer more than what CoD offers. Destiny, for instance, is a completely new take on the FPS as an MMORPG. Because it's new and completely massive as well as it's ability to make a solid functioning FPS it will certainly be a game that strongly challenges Call of Duty.

Unless CoD can find a way to step it up and give the community a whole new CoD they will lose footing in the FPS genre.

They have already lost their footing so MMORPG games to come like Destiny have nothing to do with it. BF4 is a failure so it has nothing to do with it either. The low player counts were there before Titanfall so it has nothing to do with it either. And I am on record as saying Titanfall won't have legs because of the everyone is a winner game design. I already have seen calls for Pilot only game modes and complaints about the limited Titan "rewards streaks" (for lack of a better term) that everybody gets regardless of how poorly they play.

Of course as other games enter the playing field it will chip away at the COD population but that was always been the case and it was still king by far. You still have not addressed my original question which was what do you expect them to do if gun on gun was what everyone wanted.

Destiny by itself, no. But that's just one game. ESO is another MMORPG that's set to release on consoles in June and there's half a dozen heavily hyped titles that will follow it's release in July and some huge titles coming in the late Fall. As you said, CoD has already lost it's footing and I agree with you that players have been looking to jump ship at the first title that shows itself to be as replayable and instantly gratifying. Well guess what, next generation of gaming is here and soon the game will be released and players will have their chance to play something else new and exciting.

I stepped into multiplayer for a match and a half today. I would have gone longer, but my wife started streaming video again and that ended my gaming for the day.

In any case, the lop-sided match results, IMO, are indicative of this belief that you can quantitatively measure skill. Worse still, is a flawed "lobby balancing" mechanism. Back when we had Elite, yes, you could actually look at a lot of different stats for each player and quickly see that the game was, indeed, "balancing" players based upon statistics. However, when you have three super-good players and nine so-so players, you're automatically not going to have "balanced" teams. As long as you have a system that pits parties versus randoms, you're not going to have balance.

And even if those two major issues were not actual factors? You would still have to contend with what I call the Roger Clemens effect. You can take a winning pitcher from the NY Yankees and throw him on the Houston Astros all you want, it doesn't mean the Astros are going to win the World Series. Same concept in COD. You can take and put a super-star on a team of idiots all you want, doesn't mean the team has an equal chance against an average team.

The bottom line is that, it still boils down to a 50-50 chance as to which team is going to win. And when you add the "balancing" efforts to it, 50% of the time you're going to be blown out and 50% of the time you're going cremate the other team.

I've experienced alot of lob-sided games where i believe the kills are an indication of someting not right. Let me explain.

I've been fortunate enough to be placed in a lobby where we keep the same players on the same sides back to back for perhaps ten games. Now they had one high kd player and the rest were sub 1, pretty much the same as our team.

On the first game i absolutely wrecked them. Got a wild kd of 38 or something, had no problems shooting anybody. The scoreboards at the end displayed high kills and kd on our side and really poor and some negative kds on their side. We won the game easily.

Next match, was similar and then on the third match there was a complete turn-around. When i say i struggled to kill the very same players i had just destroyed, it is no exageration. Suddenly i felt like i was playing against amazing shooters. Needless to say, we lost and the final kds were completely flipped. They won the next 2 games and then almost like somebody flipped a switch, we were back being able to kill them with ease.

Yeah. That's it. They program the game to behave like modern day kindergarten - everyone gets a purple star. Yaaayy!!!

Please.

I have "something's not right" matches, too. Check out the forums. It is well-documented that everyone has such experiences. That still does not account for the wildly different performance of some players over the majority of players. Unless you're trying to claim that the devs have selected specific players and, without those players knowing it, are given a behind-the-scenes unfair advantage. Yeah. The Illuminati picks and chooses winners. As a member of the Illuminati, I have some ocean front property in Arizona I will sell you at a really low price in order to help you become and established illuminati member.

What you're not taking into account is the sad fact that we are not as good as we think we are. I've seen tons of guys that suck. Bad suck. I'm talking 0.30 kdr ... that have that one map where they always do very well. At any given time, you've got as many as six opponents just like that. And, at the same time, just because "always" do super-good on one map does not mean I will always perform well on that map.

I mean, "something is not right" can be that lag that is so slight you don't really notice it. I get that. I've had a lot of games like that myself. I'll give it a go a couple more matches, usually, before moving on to another lobby. While I am in such a situation, however, I have to change my approach to the enemy. I don't always have the patience to do that, I admit it. When I don't, however, there's only one person to blame for a lousy performance and that's myself. Personally, I think it is hilarious when I can tell something has changed so I change my approach and, the other team, supposing they now have that invisible purple star effect working in their favor, assume an overwhelming victory ... only to be handed a miserable defeat. Hell, even funnier than that is when they DO score that incredible victory ... but I've still outperformed most if not all of their team. That's when the accusations begin flying. And that's when I just hit mute.

There's no sense in talking to folks that genuinely believe mankind will never improve his condition. In other words, we go back to what I've been saying for a couple of weeks now. The premise of Call of Duty is an elite soldier who, despite all the odds against him, is able to pull a victory out of his rear. Those odds that are against him are not some magical number. The odds against him are weak weapons, underpowered perks, etc with all the opposites of those in favor of the opponent. And one of the odds against that elite soldier is the fact he has to work through lag ... or at least be able to pick and choose his battles wisely. You think I pass on engagements in-game only? No, I also pass on engagements before there ever is an engagement. In other words, I play five matches in a single lobby without any issues with lag. The next two matches, lag is an issue. There is no eighth match. I leave.

On a final note, you can't blame ATVI nor your console's network for all those lag situations. My game plays great ... until my wife starts streaming video. Then I literally have to set the game aside. That's not IW or TA's fault. Sometimes while I'm playing and my wife is not streaming video, I have lag issues, too. While that's rare, I can unequivocally tell you that those issues are mostly related to my ISP. I know because I can pull my laptop over and see that the connection is fluctuating. How is that the developers' fault? There's nothing you can do about that. Well, maybe you could get on a rant about Walmart connections. I don't have a Walmart connection, though. And your ISP does not provide static service, either. None do. People that claim they do are just exaggerating their positions. That way they can feel good about themselves in believing that, were all things equal, they would still outperform the other guy. That mentality is a social construction, though. No one is the best at everything. No one. And life is not ever going to be "equal" no matter how many purple stars you earned in kindergarten.

Yep.. when my wife starts streaming *cough* porn *cough* videos, I know my gaming time is coming to a close as well.

*snicker*

All joking aside, I agree we are not as good as we think. I remember listening to someone who was complaining about lag (MW3) say: "When the game works, it plays great.. but when it lags it is terrible".

The 1st thing I thought to myself was: and when it is playing great and you are getting a good KD and destroying the enemy, why is it they never say "When the enemy was lagging I had a good game"? I have always found it funny that people complain when they are getting killed by what looks like one bullet, but it never occurs to them that when they kill someone it may appear to them like they got killed by one bullet. When I am not having a "Something's not right game", I appreciate the enemy who cannot kill me, probably is.

It is the "it's never a problem until it happens to me" attitude.

That may not have been the spirit of your response; but it reminds me of what I talked about above.

Something that I've tended to notice over the year, Rexens, is that hot migrations tend to take place when the lag itself fluctuates a lot. If the lag is "consistent," the migration may not even show up. Those are things I try to look for when the match becomes a "something doesn't feel right" situation.

The "something doesn't feel right" match is the easiest to deal with. If it feels like I'm pumping out enough rounds to score a kill only to be killed instead, my next effort is to see if I'm imagining things or if I really am running behind by a little. I know what what Warlord is talking about because I experience it exactly the way he describes. It's as if everything looks synchronized, but it seems like it is not actually synchronized. I don't game capture and I don't bother trying to count how many rounds it takes to kill. I get a feel for it. Back when we had Last Stand, I got into the habit of pumping out a few extra rounds "just in case." In "something doesn't feel right" situations, it is almost reflexive that I do that to this day. Where that becomes important is when I managed to flank a guy and shoot him when he doesn't even see me.

Pay close attention to the sounds of your shots. If you hit an opponent, the sound is just slightly different than hitting some other object. So if I'm shooting a guy and I am square on center of mass target and I'm not hearing that different sound until what should be about the 5th or 6th round, then I know lag is affecting the game. Not only that, but I've got a pretty good idea as to how much the game is lagging. The thing I have to do next is find out if it is consistent. So you find a second target and do the same thing, see how many rounds your gun fires as opposed to how many rounds are on target before the game starts scoring you with a hit.

Here's where I think people make a mistake. They take what I've just described 100% literal. It may be another two minutes before I can find that second target. Now, I may have engaged five other targets between my first "test" target and my second "test" target. Simply having a second target is not how I deal with the situation. I want to have a target I can give undivided attention. That's important. If I can see a three targets in front of me and none of them know I'm behind them, my "test" target does not have my undivided attention. I have to be ready, in a millisecond, to take on one or both of those other two targets. Any movement they make while I'm taking on the first target will make whatever results I get from the "test" useless because I won't have a good, solid measure of how many shots it took to score the kill.

I know that all sounds like I'm overcomplicating the game. That's the point many of us have been making for years. The game is supposed to be complicated. It is supposed to force you to make do or die decisions with very little time to think out the consequences for those decisions.

Once I realize this is a "something doesn't feel right" match, I know I've got to change strategy on the fly. That may mean taking a different CAC upon next respawn. It may mean moving from a camping strategy to a hard, run & gun flank-cenctric strategy. It may mean switching from a hard run & gun match to a camp-kill-move-camp-kill-move match.

And that's what pissess people off. They want a predictable opponent. The "lag is in my favor" so I should therefore be winning big time ... but I'm getting slaughtered by this guy!

The reason you're getting slaughtered is because you are up against a player that's not going to take disadvantages as a foregone conclusion to a loss.

THAT, in my opinion, is what Call of Duty is about. Disadvantaged or not, I'm going to do my darnedest to find a weakness in my opponents' game. And once I find that weakness? I'm going to exploit it to my fullest ability.

The reason you're getting slaughtered is because you are up against a player that's not going to take disadvantages as a foregone conclusion to a loss.

THAT, in my opinion, is what Call of Duty is about. Disadvantaged or not, I'm going to do my darnedest to find a weakness in my opponents' game. And once I find that weakness? I'm going to exploit it to my fullest ability.

Amen.

It's not like your opponent isn't going to do the same, it's about finding that crack and overcoming.

IDC if im called a camper/patroller/ambusher or headless chicken in Ghosts as its all about who will do what it takes to get the advantage.

Less and less matches are going down to the wire. I've dabbled in a couple matches today and all of them have been losses where my team barely hit the half the points needed to win while the other team piled on the airsupport. We staged a comeback but only after the bottom two players on our team quit and the enemy lost their cannon fodder.

I don't play nearly as much as a used too, maybe a few matches a couple times a week and I have to say, between this and lack of friends who play the game, I'm finding little incentive to play for extended periods of time.

You can consider two things if your comparing the game to its first months out:

1- Everyone was equally ignorant to maps, guns, routes, etc with the game so errors and deaths were higher.

2- Now you have learned players who know where the popular routes are and these players like previous COD's make the difference in winning and losing.

Also, for some reason I notice the very very good players come out during clan wars. Its in those hours / days I run into really really good players who fight for the win. If you are playing solo against them you will suffer bad.

Again G' join me, phxs, nik and few others and you will know the difference.

I understand what you are saying Warlord, but that argument makes a mountain out of a molehill: it doesn't fly. What you're post implied was that the game either magically or purposely, creates an environment that balances results. I mean, you said, essentially, that half the time the game lags and half the time it does not. Further, you claimed that the lag begin after you have been on a considerable win streak. You intimated that the lag remains until you've lost about, not exactly, but about, as many games as you had won. Other than saying it outright, there is no clearer way for someone to say, "The game purposely makes me lose."

What players like myself and rlbl will come back out you with is that even if that were true, you till have to account for players that have better than a 1 to 1 kdr and better than a 50% wlr. I mean, once you claim the game is rigged to caused equal results for everyone (as rainmaker6 puts it, a game where "everyone is a winner" or my purple stars for everyone), there's not a lot of options out there in explaining how those above average players are getting above average results. Are they cheating via hacking so that lag does not affect them? Do they have copies of the game that have special code that exempts them from lag? Or maybe they've been secretly chosen by a secret COD committee to be winners and the code that exempts them from "something is not right" moments?

Do you see where I'm going with this?

I mean, if you have "above average" results, then you fall into the "Chosen Luminaries" category yourself. Do you feel "chosen?" What's the reward for being "Chosen?"

Of course that sounds ridiculous, perhaps even insulting. It should. You're dismissing their performance by dismissing claiming that the ONLY reasons you EVER perform below average is because of some unseen, hidden bully intent on making everyone feel good by giving everyone equal results. That's not even logically possible. Big Bad Corporation, member of the Greedy Capitalist Pig Society, is unfairly making the outcome of the game fair for everyone???

See, when you drop the "blame everyone but myself" mantra that much of the world has been taught to follow for the last fifty years, you can actually find logical explanations for a lot of things you encounter in a video game (and by extension, life, but I digress on that matter). It is not often, but stick around long enough and you're going to hear from jut about every forum vet out there the phrase "play through the lag."

It is not easy to do, I will grant that. When it happens, you have to focus upon the very basics of what is important and what is not. Is scoring the most kills important? Or is staying alive ... more ... important? Is running and gunning important? Or is scoring a kill ... more ... important? It's all relative to the situation. In the grand scheme of things, the community appreciates a good run and gun player more than it appreciates a good camper. But, at the end of the day, when everything comes down to either a win or a loss, which one is appreciated more? A "good" run and gunner who becomes the victim in the final kill cam? Or the camper that killed the guy dying in the final kill cam? See?

Those concept apply when you are in those "something is not right" matches. Personally, as I said before, I will generally play through a couple of those types of matches before deciding to find another lobby. However, I have to be brutally honest with myself - is the game really lagging? Or am I tired from staying up late or am I tired from working all day ... or do I just need to stop playing for a while after a several hours' run?

It isn't just the game that causes a bad performance. In fact, I'd say that 99.9% of the time that I have a bad run? It is because of something I did or did not do. It has nothing to do with the game. Again, that does not dismiss the fact that there are things I may not like about this game or other CODs when I play them. But those are tangents that do not affect the whole.

What you have to remember Warlord is that people are people, therefore they have the capacity to adapt.

If the opposition has any brains they would be creating classes to counter the most used classes your team is implementing for that game-mode.

Also take into account the millions of variables that is the Internet, players ping fluctuates constantly for most part.

However even if YOUR ping/connection is stable, the host or other players may not be.

I don't agree with the 99.9% bad run part, I know when I am playing bad or even say 10% worse and I also can tell when the connection is deteriorating. If my reflexes are off a bit I know and it's nothing to do with anything other than biology. (mostly cos I am pissed) The thing is an increase of lag on certain players affects the way you implement your strategy/abilities.

A catch 22 scenario ensues because you are trying to compensate for lagging players yet players who aren't lagging too badly require different timing, aiming etc so the compensation works against you when encountering these players.

EG: One guy is lagging bad so I have to adjust my aim/gun to properly combat him. I then run into a different, low lag player and if I use the same method then I will not be as successful against that player.

This creates confusion and doubt in how you are approaching the gameplay.

However even if YOUR ping/connection is stable, the host or other players may not be.

EG: One guy is lagging bad so I have to adjust my aim/gun to properly combat him. I then run into a different, low lag player and if I use the same method then I will not be as successful against that player.

This creates confusion and doubt in how you are approaching the gameplay.

This throws your game out and a shitty experience occurs.

In my experience, Rexens, when what you describe is happening, there WILL be a host migration. That being the case, I switch to my most stealthy CAC and go hide in a corner until the migration takes place. I've even downed myself intentionally in order to facilitate the camp.